Creature of the Night
by Wyzeguy
Summary: What if Nightcrawler had appeared in the Ultimate Marvel Universe as a much different character than he appeared as in #7?
1. Default Chapter

CREATURE OF THE NIGHT  
  
Fanfiction by Wyzeguy   
  
Based on Ultimate X-Men  
  
[Disclaimer: All characters contained herein are owned by Marvel Comics. I'm not claiming any of them; I simply want to introduce Nightcrawler into the Ultimate Marvel Universe. I realize that Mark Millar has already done so in Ultimate X-Men #7, but this story was first conceived around #3, long before Millar announced any intention of bringing Kurt in.   
  
This story takes place after the end of Ultimate X-Men #6, and starts its own continuity. No disrespect is intended to Millar's Ultimate Nightcrawler, who definitely rocked in all eight pages in which he's appeared. Besides, Millar has read this story, and thinks it kicks ass. Enjoy!]  
  
"His name is Kurt Wagner," Professor Charles Xavier stated as he pulled off his Cerebro helmet and let it retract up toward the ceiling. "Unlike most the mutants we know of, his particular genetic mutation has been obvious from birth." He pressed a button on the Cerebro computer and brought up an image of the subject.  
  
Scott "Cyclops" Summers gaped at what he saw: Kurt Wagner had blue skin, full-yellow eyes devoid of pupils, two fingers and a thumb on each hand, matching digits on his toes, and a long, prehensile tail with a triangular point like a demon. Cyclops watched as the image of Kurt performed acrobatic techniques with supreme skill. "I also believe he is capable of short-range teleportation," Xavier continued.  
  
"What...is he?" Scott finally asked, "I mean...besides a mutant?"  
  
"Until recently, a former circus performer," Xavier replied, petting his cat that had just jumped in his lap. "He hails from Germany, and was raised in a travelling circus that cultivated his extrahuman agility. He was their star performer."  
  
"'Was'?" Jean "Marvel Girl" Grey asked, quirking an eyebrow and running a hand through her short red hair. "What happened?"  
  
Xavier let out a slow breath. "The circus toured the States recently...but their timing couldn't have been worse. The Sentinels decimated them in one of their sweeps, even though there were only two mutants in the circus. Kurt was the only survivor."  
  
"Damn..." Scott mumbled, eyes narrowing behind his gold visor, its ruby quartz lens the only barrier holding back his optic energy beams. "Where is he now?"  
  
"An abandoned church in Tallahassee, Florida, of all places."  
  
Scott turned to Jean, smiling slightly. "So this means you get to go on another cross-country recruiting drive, then."  
  
"I've done the last several," Jean replied. "I'd like to see you do it for once. It could improve your people skills."  
  
"What's that supposed to--?"  
  
"I will talk to him," Xavier announced. To his pupils' confused expressions, he added, "I have my reasons. But you two, and the rest of the team, can join me if you like."  
  
_X_  
  
"Are you sure we cannot talk this over?" Kurt Wagner asked the man holding the pistol to Kurt's forehead. He struggled against the handcuffs which pinned his arms behind his back, as he knelt in front of his captor, waiting for the man to pull the trigger.  
  
The man, Sam Boswell, was the leader of Florida's chapter of the Friends of Humanity, an anti-mutant militia that had surfaced in almost every state in response to the rising nationwide mutant hysteria. "I'm sure," he replied. "We've had enough of yer lip, mutie. You put up a good fight 'fore we caught ya, but The Friends of Humanity? We're tired of mutant freaks terrorizin' us decent folk, an' attractin' Sentinels."  
  
"So you're saying it's MY fault that those robots keep showing up?"  
  
Sam nodded, as did the other members of the FOH, who gathered around the backwoods bonfire, with rifles, baseball bats, and broken bottles.  
  
"Pardon a fellow for asking," Kurt muttered in a barely-noticeable German accent.  
  
"A 'fellow', huh?" Sam quoted, mimicking and bastardizing Kurt's dialect. "You call yourself a fellow, like you're a human or somethin'? Look in the mirror, pal. You're a demon." Sam reached down with his free hand and took hold of the small silver Catholic cross on Kurt's necklace. "You're a demon who's got no business wearin' this." He ripped off the necklace, causing Kurt to sneer.  
  
"Bastard..." Kurt seethed. "You think you can actually judge me, just because you look human and I don't? You act like being human is something to aspire to...and that I should be ashamed because I'm not." Kurt's featureless yellow eyes narrowed. "You are right that there are demons present in these woods. However, mein freund...I am not one of them."  
  
"Can we get on with this?" one of the other FOHers asked. "My buzz is wearin' off."  
  
"All right, all right, calm down," Sam told him, returning his attention to the gun at Kurt's blue-skinned forehead. He clicked the pistol. "Any last words?"  
  
"Are you interested in hearing them?" Kurt returned, fairly annoyed by the proceedings.  
  
"Not really," Sam stated, pulling the trigger and firing the gun.  
  
Needless to say, it came as a great surprise to all but Kurt that Sam's shot went wide by three feet, hitting a tree. Sam gaped dumfounded at his wrist, tightly wrapped in a blue prehensil tail with an arrowlike point at the end. He'd been so distracted that he didn't notice the mutant's tail snaking around his wrist until it was too late.  
  
"And people think the tail is for decoration," Kurt mused as he leapt straight up from his crouched position, sending a forward kick at Sam's chest. The bigot flew backward off his feet, and his buddies advanced on Kurt to retaliate.  
  
They were much too slow, as Kurt leapt ten feet upward a second time, bringing both knees up to his chest, and passed the chain of the handcuffs under him to bring his hands in front of him. On his way down, he let go of Sam with his tail, and drop-kicked the nearest FOH member, striking him in the jaw.  
  
The men with the rifles opened fire, and Nightcrawler dashed into a cluster of bushes, bullets whizzing by him.  
  
The Friends of Humanity surrounded the bushes, guns drawn. They saw a shadowy underbrush, but no mutant.  
  
"Up here," Kurt announced as he leaped from a nearby tree into their midst, and sent a flurry of kicks into their midst before they could react. In no time at all, six men sprawled face-down on the ground, out cold.  
  
Sam caught up with the group, and threw a punch at Kurt. Big mistake. Kurt brought up his hands and wrapped the chain of his handcuffs around Sam's wrist in a fluid motion.  
  
Sam howled in pain as Kurt leaped straight upward to a tree branch over head, and hung from it with his legs and tail wrapped around it. Sam screamed as he was lifted off his feet, and the men left standing advanced on Kurt and Sam.  
  
"Keep your distance, gentlemen," Kurt warned as he swung Sam forcefully toward the nearest Friend, causing the two men to collide. He then repeated this trick with another of them. His dark blue lips curled into a savage grin, exposing yellow fangs.  
  
The three remaining men wised up and kept their distance, pointing their rifles at Kurt and opening fire. Kurt's reflexes saved him once again, as he unwrapped his legs and tail from the branch and dropped under the gunfire, landing on the ground behind Sam with catlike grace. He then unwrapped the chain from Sam's pained wrist.  
  
Sam didn't appear to be exactly grateful, as Kurt wrapped the chain around the man's neck, and glared menacingly at the Friends of Humanity. "Back off," he hissed, "or I break his neck."  
  
The humans kept their guns trained on a spot between Kurt's eyes.  
  
"You think I'm joking? I have nothing left to lose."  
  
The gunmen held their positions.  
  
"All right, if that's the way you want it to be..." He squeezed Sam's neck even tighter, about to twist the man's head off.  
  
~Stop.~  
  
Kurt's eyebrows raised in response to a commanding voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere. The Friends of Humanity suddenly dropped their rifles, and fell to the ground unconscious.  
  
Kurt relaxed his hold on Sam, who seemed to be similarly unresponsive. "Who's there?" Kurt asked, panic more evident in his voice than he'd have liked it to be.  
  
~Let the man go, Kurt. You don't want to kill him.~  
  
"Of course I don't want to kill him," Kurt responded, removing the chain from Sam's neck (which now had a chain-shaped bruise engraved in it), letting the human drop to the ground. "I just wanted to get those verdammt humans to back off and leave me alone." He collected his thoughts. "And just who are you? And how do you know my name?"  
  
A small figure wheeled himself into the flickering campfire light. "You should know who I am, Kurt Wagner," Charles Xavier announced. "I saved you from that racist mob in Bavaria a few years ago. You were younger then."  
  
Kurt stepped forward, recognition coloring his dark features. "Xavier? Yeah, I remember you. You made those people forget they were beating me to a pulp, and just...walk away. You then asked if I was okay, complimented my acrobatic prowess in the circus show earlier that night...and left."  
  
Charles smiled enigmatically. "You DO remember. I have been meaning to contact you sooner, since your arrival in the States, and subsequent loss of your family. Sadly, various events have gotten in the way. But now I am here, and I offer you a home, a purpose, and a group of people much like yourself, to serve as your peers."  
  
Kurt's eyebrow raised skeptically. "I sincerely doubt there is ANYONE like me, much less a group."  
  
Xavier shrugged. "Fair enough. I suppose, then, that you wouldn't be interested in meeting my companions...the X-Men."  
  
Seven figures in form-fitting black leather uniforms with gold accessories emerged from the shadows, much like Xavier had. Kurt took a step back, defensively.  
  
"Relax, Mr. Wagner," Xavier informed him, his voice calm and soothing. "They will not hurt you. From left to right, we have Scott Summers, called Cyclops; Jean Grey, known as Marvel Girl; Peter Rasputin, our human Colossus; Ororo Monroe, codenamed Storm; Bobby Drake, or Iceman; Wolverine; and Hank McCoy..."  
  
"Who is now much less the 'Beast' of this team than he was two minutes ago," Hank McCoy finished, sizing up Kurt curiously from behind his gold-colored prescription glasses.  
  
Kurt twitched his tail in faint annoyance.  
  
"Let me get those cuffs for you," Cyclops offered, walking to him and adjusting the setting dial on his visor to a thin beam.  
  
Kurt took one look at the crimson energy flaring from the visor and backed up. "That is not necessary," he answered, slipping his thin, tri-fingered hands out of the handcuffs, and handing them to Cyclops. The expression on the X-Men leader's face could only be described as "priceless."  
  
"Now then," Xavier announces. "Let's get Mr. Wagner settled in his new home, shall we?"  
  
"One moment." Kurt disappeared in a flash of light, cloud of brimstone, and loud noise that sounded something like "Bamf!", causing the X-Men to do a collective double-take. He reappeared near the campfire, searching around for a moment, then teleported once more, reappearing in front of the X-Men, holding his cross medallion, broken chain and all. "Now I am ready."  
  
TO BE CONTINUED 


	2. No Place Like Home

Part 2: No Place Like Home   
  
"Will somebody tell this blue whatchamacallit to stay on his side of the couch?" Ororo Monroe bellowed, while shoving her new teammate, Kurt Wagner, off of her comfort zone. "I am NOT changing the channel!"  
  
"And will someone please explain to the white-haired, brown-skinned fraulein," Kurt replied, waving his pointed, prehensile tail in Ororo's face, "that as fascinating as 'Ricki Lake' must be, there are other television shows on at this moment with much more cultural value. Like all of them."  
  
"You just want to watch lame-ass cartoons," Ororo accused, grabbing Kurt's tail and using her inborn climate control ability to lower the tail's surface temerature to just below freezing.  
  
Kurt yelped and leapt off the couch without even trying. "Verdammt, woman! What are you trying to do, give me frostbite?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"That was unkind. And I'll have you know that cartoons are far more entertaining than daytime talk shows, which you are interested in watching for the sole purpose of feeling better than the humans."  
  
"I AM better than those trailer-trash knuckle-draggers."  
  
"I thought this school was supposed to teach interspecies tolerance, or are you flunking that class?"  
  
Ororo glared daggers at him, her eyes glowing with energy. "Interspecies tolerance is the only thing keepin' me from toastin' your ass with a lightning bolt, ya--"  
  
"Oh good," Hank McCoy muttered as he walks into the room, holding his forehead in an oversized hand, "Ororo's threatening someone's life again. For a moment there I thought I was in the wrong mansion." He sat on the sofa next to Ororo, who snuggled up to him. The two had become closer since Hank recovered from surgery several weeks before, and they'd already been on a date. The only ones who didn't admit to the two of them being an item were, of course, Ororo and Hank.  
  
"Funny, Henry," Ororo smirked. "I was just schooling Kurt here on who rules the rec room."  
  
"Forgive me for not bowing, my liege," Kurt remarked, defiant to the end. He knew he was tempting fate by angering a woman who could summon any form of weather phenomenon known to man, but for a former trapeze artist, tempting fate was old hat.  
  
Ororo stuck out her tongue at him, which was unladylike but she didn't care, and turned to Hank. "See what I have to put up with?" She narrowed her brown eyes, studying Hank's pained face. "She did it to you again, didn't she?"  
  
"'Fraid so," Hank grumbled.  
  
"Did what?" Kurt asked gently, expecting Ororo to throw something at him for remaining in the room.  
  
Hank looked up at Kurt with annoyance, not at him, but at his current troubles. "You ever had a really annoying song that you couldn't get out of your head? Well, Jean's new favorite way to end an argument in her favor is to telepathically plant one of those songs into her opponent's head. At full volume. I made the mistake on disagreeing with her on whether or not the Blackbird's cloaking system needed an upgrade."  
  
"Which one is it this time?" Ororo queried, knowing exactly how it feels.  
  
"'The Horse With No Name'. The song keeps looping in my head over and over and OVER."  
  
"Harsh," Kurt responded, then looked to Ororo. "Has she done this to you?"  
  
"Beethoven," Ororo frowned. "Bobby got disco, Logan got Backstreet Boys, and Scott was pumped full of country. The only two people in this mansion she hasn't done that to, 'sides herself, are the professor and you. She definitely won't do it to the prof, but your days are numbered."  
  
"I feel blessed already," Kurt sighed as he turned and left the room.  
  
As he traversed the main hall, he heard Scott Summers' unmistakable voice bellowing from the kitchen: "Who drank up all my chocolate milk?!"  
  
Kurt shrugged and kept walking. It wasn't him; "Thou Shalt Stay Away From Cyclops' Chocolate Milk" was one of the first house rules explained to him upon arrival in the mansion, so he knew better.  
  
_X_  
  
"So tell me somethin'," the X-Man known as Wolverine mentioned to Kurt an hour later as he bench-pressed a three-hundred-pound barbell in the school's gymnasium.  
  
Kurt continued performing a complicated martial arts pattern in the center of the gym, involving a series of high kicks, punches, blocks, and evades. "Hm?"  
  
"Why didn't you teleport?"  
  
Without slowing down or losing concentration in his routine, Kurt sent a knife-hand strike at the air and replied, "I don't understand."  
  
"The other day, just before we found you...hrrrgh...when you had those bigoted rednecks all around you with a gun to your head...hggghhh...why didn't you just teleport outta there? The professor says you can do that, and I saw it when you got your cross back." He set the barbell back on the weight bench, and sat up. Wolverine refused to have a spotter when he lifted weights.  
  
Kurt stopped the pattern, and looked at Wolverine. He thought for a moment before he answered, "Several reasons, actually: First, teleportation is not easy to do. Willing myself to instantly vanish from one place and reappear in another taxes me just as much as if I had made the trip on foot. I had teleported already in an attempt to escape them earlier that day, but they caught up with me.  
  
"Second, we were in the middle of a forest. There was nothing around for miles. I didn't know the area, so if I'd teleported away, I'd have just found myself in the middle of more woods, with even less idea where I was. Chances were excellent that I could have found myself occupying the same space as a tree, which would not have been healthy.  
  
"And third, I was more than capable of taking care of those fools singlehandedly, which, as you saw, I did. They needed to be taught a lesson, and I was more than happy to play the role of teacher." Kurt shrugged and resumed the pattern, starting over at the beginning.  
  
Wolverine stood up, wiping his sweaty neck with a towel. "There's a fourth reason you ain't tellin' me, isn't there, bub?"  
  
"Of course not," responded Kurt, as he launched a side kick at the ribs of an imaginary opponent.  
  
"Yeah, right. Bet there's somethin' else. Bet it has to do with that cross you're always wearin.'"  
  
Kurt stopped and glared daggers at Logan. "As a matter of fact, Herr Wolverine, my last reason has everything to do with this cross. It was given to me when I turned sixteen by Amanda, one of my friends in der jahrmarkt, the circus. We grew up together, and she was the first person who accepted my appearance unconditionally. I grew to love her, and we shared a kiss on the trapeze platform."  
  
Kurt stared sadly at the tiny cross on his necklace, which Xavier had provided a new chain for after the previous one was unceremoniously ripped from his neck. "Then she gave me this cross. That was last year.  
  
"Then...more recently, the circus had saved enough money to tour in America, so we went, completely unaware of the...situation with mutants here in the States. Just before our last performace, Amanda revealed to me that...that she was pregnant with my child. It was both a happy revelation and a sad one, because that would mean she would have to give up the high wire and trapeze for a few months, which was anathemas to her."  
  
Kurt suddenly clenched the cross in his fist so tightly it threatened to draw blood. "Then...then...in the middle of our performace, the robots arrived."  
  
"The Sentinels?" Wolverine asked, absorbed in the story.  
  
"Yes...whatever you call them. Those heartless machines ripped the big top to shreds trying to catch me. I had done an excellent job in evading their energy beams, but in the process, at least ten people were killed by stray blasts.  
  
"I was determined that Amanda would not be one of them, especially now that she carried my child. I reached her, and teleported us both out of the tent. Unfortunately, that was the first time I had tried that trick with the added mass of another person. We both found ourselves seriously hurt by the attempt, and Amanda more than myself. The robots surrounded us and opened fire. We were too slow in moving."  
  
Kurt clenched his eyes shut as tears flowed unabated down his dark-blue-skinned cheeks. "The energy beam grazed my arm, but Amanda? Amanda was torn apart by it."  
  
Kurt's voice began to rise. "I lashed out at the robots, forgetting my injuries. I grabbed a tree branch and teleported it into that fucking machine's skull! I repeated the trick with the other two, but in my rage, I had neglected to realize where one of them was falling. It crushed the entire big top."  
  
Kurt took a deep, cleansing breath. "Ironic, is it not, that those robots had arrived with the intention of killing only me, but by the end of the night, I was the only member of my circus they didn't kill?" He let go of the cross, and watched it swing back and forth on it chain, tapping against his chest. "This is the only thing I have left of my life. Well, that and the martial arts I learned from the lion tamer."  
  
"Oh yeah...that's Kung Fu, right?"  
  
"And a bit of capoeira."  
  
"Oh...mind showin' me some o'that one of these days?"  
  
"Certainly. On one condition."  
  
"What's that?"  
  
"You tell me a little bit about your past."  
  
"Not a chance, elf." Wolverine tossed the towel aside, and exited the gym, leaving Kurt to grin pleasantly.  
  
_X_  
  
Kurt crept along the branches of an oak tree, nearly invisible in the moonlight as his long toes gripped the bark tightly. It was midnight, and Kurt, a nocturnal mutant by nature, was on the prowl.  
  
On the prowl for what, he wasn't certain. He didn't hunt any animals, though he always enjoyed seeing how close he could get to one before it sensed him. He couldn't find any suitable animals this night, figuring that he was new enough to the forest outside the mansion that the local wildlife would stay away from him. By contrast, he was so well-known to the animals in the German forests that he often wondered if they missed his presence. Such was the life of Kurt Wagner, walking in both the animal and the human worlds, but really belonging to neither.  
  
Kurt looked over to the mansion, one such haven for humans. Or mutants, whatever. He was outside the east wing, which housed the student living quarters, including his own room. The windows revealed that the lights in Hank's, Piotr's, and Bobby's rooms were on. He guessed Hank was reading or surfing the Internet, and Bobby was playing a video game. Scott was probably in the Danger Room or Viewing Room, honing his skills as an X-Man.  
  
Upon peering over to Piotr's room, he discovered that Piotr was at an easel, sketching out a picture. Under Xavier's roof, his innate artistic talent, which had been largely neglected during Piotr's tenure as a Russian Mafia enforcer, grew and flourished.  
  
Piotr cast frequent glances away from the paper to Ororo, who was standing in the center of the room, wearing a regal black African gown that was almost transparent. Her long white hair was no longer tied up in a ponytail, and Kurt thought it had a vastly different effect on her appearance. Storm, the sarcastic ex-street thief, actually looked like an exotic African goddess! Kurt never thought he'd see the day.  
  
Jean and Wolverine were awake as well, Kurt noticed, even though the lights were off in their rooms. Kurt made the mistake of peering through the window with his sensitive vision. His jaw dropped and he almost fell out of the tree. He reeeally didn't need to see what those two were up to (though it seemed that the two had obviously reconciled their differences).  
  
Of course, nobody needed to see what he was doing, either, since he always went about his nightly jaunts without clothing, which always got in the way. Still, he decided to at least wear black boxer shorts this night, should he be spotted.  
  
Kurt leapt from tree to tree, until he came upon a thin creek that the forest's ecosystem depended on. He saw a figure standing near it, deep in thought. He quickly identified the figure as Scott, fully-garbed in his X-Men uniform, and made no noise to keep from being seen.  
  
Scott looked depressed, lost in thought. Kurt didn't know him very well, but he didn't fail to notice the tension between the X-Men's leader and the rest of his team whenever Scott walked into a room. Kurt had heard that Cyclops, the first of Xavier's students, had recently joined the Brotherhood, a mutant terrorist group led by the infamous Magneto, for two weeks. Cyclops had become disillusioned with Xavier's dream of peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants after the near-death of Beast on one of their missions, and left the team to see what Magneto's side of the fence was like. Cyclops enjoyed life in the Brotherhood even less, and soon returned to the X-Men, after warning them about Magneto's impending attack on Washington D.C.  
  
However, Kurt learned, the X-Men didn't welcome Scott back into the fold as readily as Xavier did. In their eyes, he betrayed them by walking out when they needed his leadership the most. Ororo was of course the most vocal about this. Scott's longtime friendship with Jean Grey was also compromised, since another main reason for Cyclops' departure was jealousy over her newfound relationship with Wolverine, whom Scott disliked with a passion.  
  
Kurt was fascinated by this, and concerned about Scott. He didn't quite understand everything Scott had been through, but he recognized how alone the man was. He saw a lot of himself in Cyclops, and he wondered if he should start a conversation, or leave him be.  
  
~Attention all X-Men! I apologize for the rude interruption at this late hour; I'm sure your current activities are quite engaging, but it seems -I'll allow Logan and Jean to get dressed- it seems the X-Men have yet another mission.~  
  
The first syllable of Xavier's telepathic message nearly caused Kurt to fall out of the tree. This made Scott aware of Kurt's presence. Kurt spent the remainder of his message trying to calm his breathing and heartbeat. If he remained an X-Man to his dying day, he thought, he would never get used to that.  
  
He conjured a mental image of his bedroom, and teleported to it, disappearing a cloud of brimstone before Scott could say anything.  
  
_X_  
  
"Kurt, we're waiting on you," Jean "Marvel Girl" Grey shouted, gazing up the ramp in the Viewing Room, a renovated auditorium, at a closed door.  
  
"I don't care," Kurt replied on the other side of the door. "I feel like a dumkopf in this outfit. Tight black leather...how do you people stand it day after day?"  
  
"Practice," Cyclops shouted up to him. "Now get that blue wagging tail down here, or we're leaving without you."  
  
"Okay. See you when you get back."  
  
Cyclops grumbled, obviously debating whether or not to zap Kurt through the door. Storm put a hand on his arm, smiling mischeivously. "I'll fix him, Cyke."  
  
The X-Men heard a loud clap of thunder that sounded as if it were out in the hall with Kurt, followed by a loud "Bamf!", at which point Kurt materialized, dropping into the large room, white as a sheet.  
  
Piotr Rasputin held out a hand to Kurt offering to help the teleporter up after the latter had hit the floor. "Glad you could join us, Mister Wagner," he chuckled. Kurt waited two minutes for the laughter to die down before he accepted the hand up.  
  
Like the others, he wore a black leather sleeveless bodysuit with gold belt accessories. Unlike the others, his uniform possessed a hole for his tail, and black fingerless gloves specifically made for Kurt's hands, which only had two fingers and a thumb on each. Kurt thought he looked ridiculous. "Do I have to wear this?"  
  
"And now you're complaining about the uniform," Iceman observed. "Congratulations, you're now an official X-Man. All applicants must undergo the prerequisite complaining."  
  
"Don't look at me," Xavier shrugged. "The uniforms were Cyclops' idea, or the design was at least." He caught a stray thought from Kurt to the tune of, 'Now I know whose chocolate milk to spike'. "If we may return to business, these fine gentlemen..." He pressed a button on his console, and a holographic image of seven uniformed mutants resolved into view above the X-Men. "...are Domino, Cannonball, Meltdown, Siryn, Thunderbird, Angel, and Rictor, known as X-Force. Don't let the name fool you, however: they have formed without my consent or approval."  
  
"So they're trying to copy us?" Colossus asked. "Why? So they can frame us? Or cash in on our name...or what?"  
  
"I believe, Colossus, that they have been inspired by us to act as a proactive mutant strike force against humans. Our actions against the Sentinels have shown other mutants that it's possible to stand up to the racism commonly leveled against our kind. For many, we have become a source of inspiration."  
  
"But these guys are taking liberties with that inspiration," Cyclops surmised, crimson gaze locked on the holographic images. He recognized Angel, the blonde male with huge raptorlike wings growing from his back, as Warren Worthington, a spoiled rich guy who had rejected Cyclops' and Marvel Girl's offer to join the X-Men. It seemed that Worthington had found a cause to be a part of after all.  
  
"Precisely, Cyclops," Xavier nodded. "While their mode of costuming and other aesthetics are modeled after us, their methods are more reminiscient of the Brotherhood."  
  
"What do they do, bomb people?" Wolverine asked. He himself was a former member of the Brotherhood, an assassin sent by Magneto to infiltrate the X-Men and kill Xavier. However, along the way he had a change of heart (which the X-Men still debate) which led him to adopt Xavier's cause and turn against Magneto. He figured this made him the resident expert on terrorism. "And if so, why haven't we heard about 'em sooner?"  
  
"We have, Wolverine," Xavier responded, then began quoting headlines. "'Government Factory Destroyed, Mutants Suspected'. 'Anti-Mutant Activists Found Slain'. 'Friends of Humanity Warn of Mutant Uprising'. Viewed individually, these articles could be chalked up to anti-mutant hysteria. Viewed altogether, they are surprisingly accurate in hinting at X-Force's rise. Even so, it took me quite a while to even come to the conclusion that this group did exist.  
  
"As for their methods, these young men and women will apparently do whatever it takes to accomplish their mission parameters. They are just as likely to use thermite and automatic weapons as they are to use their inborn mutant gifts."  
  
Xavier pauses to let this sink in, then concludes, "The have operated in secret thus far. Unfortunately, the pattern of their attacks thus far as led me to believe that the time is soon approaching when they will make themselves known, and when that happens, everything we've worked so hard to obtain thus far will be lost."  
  
"Great," Iceman mumbled. "So much for my weekend plans...not that I had any."  
  
TO BE CONCLUDED 


	3. Show of Force

Part Three: "Show of Force"   
  
Written by David Ellis   
  
Based on Ultimate X-Men   
  
"'Nightcrawler?'" Scott Summers asked, while flying a stealth bomber dubbed The Blackbird through the sky. "You want your codename to be 'Nightcrawler'? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that a worm?"  
  
"And I suppose 'Cyclops' is a logical codename," Kurt Wagner replied, arms folded. "Besides, you wanted to nickname me 'Demon'. I've been called that too many times in my life to be comfortable with it. Besides, my late girlfriend used to call me 'Nightcrawler'."  
  
"Okay, fine, your choice," Cyclops relented, keeping his gaze on the sky ahead of them.  
  
Marvel Girl looked over to Kurt and revealed in a stage whisper, "Scott didn't like 'Cyclops' at first, but I came up with it, and I talked him into using it."  
  
"I heard that," Cyclops announced.  
  
"Why do we HAVE codenames in the first place?" Kurt asked. "Is this a secret identity thing? I don't think a name change will disguise me."  
  
"Something about 'rebaptisms' and 'posthumans' and whatnot," Iceman explained, while hard at work on his Game Boy. He appeared to be lost in it, but the others had figured out that Bobby Drake, the team's resident aspiring writer, liked to listen in on conversations while appearing oblivious. He consequently made his housemates paranoid, since Bobby rarely revealed anything he wrote. "So what's this about a girlfriend, Kurt?"  
  
Kurt rolled his eyes, a gesture which was difficult to perceive given his lack of pupils, and replied simply, "I had one back in Germany. Her name was Amanda, and she perished with the rest of the circus."  
  
Both Cyclops and Marvel Girl looked back to him. "Was she the other mutant the professor mentioned?" Jean asked. To Kurt's perplexed expression, she elaborated, "He said that there were two mutants at your circus when the Sentinels showed up. You were the only survivor. He didn't mention who the other one was."  
  
Kurt pondered this. "I...I don't know if she was. I'd never seen any indications of that, though it's possible. It would explain why she accepted me more readily than anyone else." Kurt didn't voice another possibility: It could have been my unborn child.... He wasn't versed on the intricacies of the Cerebro system, and its inability to detect prenatal mutants, especially one less than a full term old.  
  
"With that kind of emotional baggage," Storm observed, "you'll certainly fit in well with this crowd."  
  
"Thanks...I think."  
  
"Must be nice to've had a girlfriend," Iceman remarked. "I keep trying to get Big Pete here to hook me up, but he keeps refusing."  
  
"I told you she's off limits, Drake," Colossus reiterated, annoyed that Bobby brought it up once again. Then, to Kurt, he explained: "My sister, Illyana. She's Bobby's age, and she still lives in Siberia with my parents and brothers. I made the mistake of showing him her picture, and he developed a crush. Now he won't stop bugging me about wanting to meet her. I refuse because I don't want my sister to live in a place like America."  
  
Kurt absorbed this information with curiosity. "Is she a mutant?"  
  
"Not to my knowledge. If she is, her mutant power hasn't manifested." Colossus cast a pointed glance at Cyclops. "However, Cyclops and Xavier both think she should be tested to make sure, but again, why expose her to the racism we mutants endure if it can be avoided? Nobody bothers mutants in Transbaikal. Let her be happy there." "He won't even let me have her address so I can write to her!" Bobby stated incredulously. "What's wrong with a pen pal?"  
  
As Colossus and Iceman continued to argue, Wolverine turned his attention to Cyclops. "So what's the story, One-Eye? You got a little hot under the collar back in the briefing when you saw one of those X-Force people. Recognize one of 'em?"  
  
Cyclops considered telling Wolverine to mind his own business, but thought better of it when he realized the X-Men would need to know who they're up against. After a pause, he answered, "the guy with the wings is Warren Worthington III, self-important heir to a huge fortune, or at least he was until plans changed. His mutancy had something to do with it, and he's apparently been bitter ever since. He was on the list of mutants Jean and I contacted when the Sentinel threat first arose. Long story short, he couldn't be bothered with us, and told us where to go, and in which handbasket to make the trip. How he got involved with X-Force, I don't know, but I imagine that he's a loose cannon even with them."  
  
"Aren't you going to tell them about the fist fight you two got into?" Marvel Girl brought up, answered by a 'shut-up' glare by Cyclops.  
  
This caused even Beast to look up from his technical manual. "Really? Our very own Cyclops was involved in a knuckle-duster with someone he was trying to recruit? Who won?"  
  
"Can we drop it already?" Cyclops asked, fidgeting in his seat.  
  
"He lost?" Storm guessed. "Daaaamn, I can't believe he lost!"  
  
"I didn't lose!" Cyclops shouted. "Now let's drop the damn subject, already."  
  
~He won,~ Marvel Girl sent telepathically to the others, ~but he had to get his teeth fixed afterward.~  
  
Cyclops heard random snickers, Ororo snorting coffee out of her nose, and Bobby losing a life on his Game Boy Color. He glared through ruby quartz once again at Jean. "You told them about the teeth."  
  
Jean nodded.  
  
"I know where you live." To the team at large, he announced, "All right, people, we've reached Detroit."  
  
Iceman interpreted this as an opportunity to startle his teammates. "'Detroit, WHAT! Detroit, WHAT! Detroit, baby!'" He paused for effect, as the other X-Men shot him murderous looks. "What? I've always wanted to say that!"  
  
"No," Beast corrected, "just since Eminem made that music video. I should convince the professor to ground you off of MTV."  
  
"Please tell me I'm adopted," Nightcrawler groaned.  
  
_X_  
  
"We got the right address," Wolverine informed the X-Men as he sniffed around the interior of an abandoned factory ahead of the group. "People were here not too long ago. They pulled out in a hurry, though. Took all their equipment too."  
  
"So the professor's information was accurate," Marvel Girl observed, "just not up-to-date."  
  
"He's a telepathic school principal, not a conspiracy theorist," Colossus pointed out. "These people strike me as well organized, and pretty good at covering their tracks. The only reason Xavier knows about them at all is because they want him to. So if they're going to expose themselves to us at all--"  
  
His words were lost as a loud electrical hum infiltrated the factory, followed by a large sphere of electromagnetic energy at the center. The X-Men backed up cautiously from it, ready to use their powers for fight or flight if necessary.  
  
Nine figures emerged from the sphere, before it contracted into the body of a blonde woman in the center of the group. She, like the rest of her team, wore a black ops uniform the X-Men recognized as belonging to X-Force. However, she was one of two X-Force members the X-Men didn't recognize; the other was a smaller woman with a catlike appearance, right down to the golden brown fur, tail, claws, and fangs.  
  
"We're glad you could join us," the woman in front greeted. Cyclops' team recognized her as Domino, the team leader and markswoman. She was easy to recognize, as her pale ivory skin contrasted greatly with her raven hair and black oval spot circling her left eye. As unlikely as this physical mutation looked, her all-business demeanor more than compensated for it.  
  
"We were in the neighborhood," Cyclops quipped. The X-Men were promptly introduced to the rest of X-Force: Cannonball, a lanky blonde teen who wore a World War II-era leather bomber jacket and aviator goggles, had the ability to project controlled bursts of kinetic energy through his legs, which granted him projectile-like flight. Meltdown, a short blonde girl who bore an unsettling resemblance to 80s-era Madonna, could form spheres of energy that she could detonate at will. Thunderbird, a large embittered Apache male, provided the team's strength and speed. Siryn, a temperamental red-haired Irish girl, possessed the ability to project virtually any vocal frequency imaginable, often with devastating results. Rictor, a Hispanic male car thief, was a human earthquake. Locus, the female teleporter who brought X-Force here, could lock onto any bio-signature as an achor for her power. Feral, the catlike woman, watched the X-Men the same way an undomesticated feline might study a  
hamster in a cage.  
  
However, the X-Force member who most caught the X-Men's collective attention was Warren Worthington. "Archangel?" Cyclops asked with a raised eyebrow hidden by his visor. I thought you were codenamed 'Angel'."  
  
"So I changed my mind," Warren replied, rustling his feathers in annoyance. "What's the matter, Red-Eye? Disappointed to find out your professor's data isn't completely up-to-date?"  
  
"Not really," Cyclops replied. "I'm amused to find out how much of a hypocrite you are. You turned down the X-Men on the grounds that you weren't 'a joiner'."  
  
Warren took a step forward. "'Hypocrite'? You want to rephrase that?"  
  
"That's enough, Archangel," Domino reprimanded. "This is why I wanted you to stay behind. This isn't a grade-school playground."  
  
"Kind of a downer, really," Storm mumbled to Colossus and Beast. "I'd've loved to see Cyclops and Wings get pulled to the principal's office by their ears."  
  
Warren glared at Domino, then backed off reluctantly. "You sure this mission requires their help?"  
  
This made Wolverine's eyes narrow. "We being drafted for somethin'? If you want an assist from us, why not just call us, instead of going through the trouble of subtly attracting our attention?"  
  
Domino ignored his second question. "Does the name Bolivar Trask ring a bell?"  
  
The X-Men froze. "The Sentinel creator?" Jean asked. "What about him?"  
  
"Turns out he didn't abandon the Sentinel Project when the President did," Cannonball replied, his Kentuck accent noticeable. "He took his idea elsewhere, and got funding from another group: The Friends of Humanity. They've been workin' fast an' furious to make another army of 'em."  
  
Kurt felt his breath leave him at the mention of Sentinels and the Friends of Humanity. He gritted his teeth. "But...how is that possible? I thought the Friends were against those robots." Only days before, he had been informed of that by an FoH member who'd threatened him at gunpoint.  
  
"Not all of the Friends are in support of this," Domino said, noticing the rising hostility in the blue X-Man's voice. "However, they ones who do support it are the highest-up in the hierarchy. Where they got the funding for this project is unknown, but what we do know is that quite a few people in the government are looking the other way."  
  
Cyclops was skeptical. "So you want us to help you fight a new legion of Sentinels, huh? You're telling me your own team wouldn't be able to handle it? What's the catch?"  
  
Meltdown shrugged. "You guys have your skills; we have ours."  
  
"What she means is," Domino translated, "you X-Men have experience in fighting the Sentinels as a group. You defeated an entire invasion force of them in D.C. not too long ago. Our group is more espionage-oriented. While you confront the Sentinels, we'll take care of the people responsible."  
  
"You're saying we're cannon fodder," Storm corrected, "while you guys go off and play spy-games. Yeah, sounds real fair."  
  
"What, you're sayin' you can't handle it?" Thunderbird taunted. Siryn elbowed him.  
  
Wolverine looked at him with a dangerous glare. "No, we said it's chicken-shit to dump your workload on us, when you can just as easily do it. Or are you telling us you can't handle it?"  
  
"There ain't nothin' I can't handle," Thunderbird shouted, grabbing at the collar of Wolverine's jacket with a large hand, "including you, little man!"  
  
Wolverine caught his wrist and twisted, his adamantium-laced grip threatening to break bones. "Yeah, keep it up, Chief, and I'll decorate this factory with you and that prison stench you're carrying around."  
  
The other members of both teams moved toward them to break up the fight, but upon hearing the word "Chief" uttered, they decided this wasn't wise, especially when Thunderbird bodyslammed Wolverine into a wall. "Don't EVER call me Chief!" Thunderbird shouted, his free hand squeezing Wolverine's throat.  
  
A trio of nine-inch bladelike claws sprang from between Wolverine's knuckles, pointing at the Apache's brow. He grinned, as Thunderbird's reaction was just as he'd hoped.  
  
"THAT'S ENOUGH, BOTH OF YE!" a feminine voice shouted, accompanied by an echo which rang off of the walls and antiquated equipment, and penetrated the two fighters' marrows. Thunderbird and Wolverine suddenly found themselves more concerned with hearing loss than macho displays of pride.  
  
"Thank you, Siryn," Domino mumbled, cleaning an ear out with her finger. "I think.... Anyway, the plan is that some of our team will help yours, X-Men, in defeating the Sentinels. Thunderbird, Meltdown, Rictor, and Cannonball are best-suited to fight the Sentinels with you. The rest of us will take the fight to the Friends of Humanity."  
  
Cyclops' eyes narrowed. Domino was definitely up to something. "What about Siryn? Her voice could come in pretty handy in scrambling the robots' systems. Mind letting us in on your end of the plan?"  
  
"No time," Domino declared. "We have someplace to be right now." She nodded to Locus, who moved toward the cluster consisting of Domino, Feral, Archangel, and Siryn. Locus formed another electromagnetic teleport field around that group, and smiled at Cyclops. "And you have Sentinels to take care of."  
  
Cyclops looked from Domino to the four X-Force members who were ordered to stay behind. They seemed to be ready for action, and looked as if they knew something the X-Men didn't. This worried Scott. He quickly broadcasted the thought, Marvel Girl, you listening?   
  
~Loud and clear, Scott,~ Jean's telepathic voice replied in his head. She'd received more of Cyclops' message than just the verbal. ~I'll give Kurt the message.~   
  
Hurry, they're about to vanish!  
  
Nightcrawler had apparently gotten the message, because he vanished in a cloud of brimstone, and reappeared in the midst of the teleporting X-Forcers, kicking Archangel from behind and sending the winged mutant out of the sphere's radius. Before Domino's group could react, Locus' teleport field vanished in a flash of light, taking its occupants with it.  
  
Archangel groggily rose to a kneeling position, scowling up at the X-Men. "What the hell was that for?"  
  
"I hate surprises," Cyclops informed him, striding toward him. "You people know a lot more about what's going on than we do, and it pisses me off that you're not willing to share the information. Now talk! What's about to happen?"  
  
Archangel stood up, staring directly at Cyclops, his posture reminiscient of a very territorial bird of prey. "Sentinels, that's what. The new wave of those things have been created and launched. We thought we had enough time to take out Trask and the FoH people before they could complete the Sentinels, but we were too late. So rather than have them scour the nation looking for mutants, we decided to make ourselves a target and have them come after us."  
  
"Make the X-Men a target, you mean," Marvel Girl corrected. "You set us up!"  
  
"You were going to be a target anyway, girl," Rictor told her. "They know about your little school for gifted mutants; that's on their list. We at least managed to arrange it so that they'd come here first. You should be thanking us."  
  
A surprise roundhouse kick from Storm struck Rictor in the jaw and sent him reeling. "You're welcome."  
  
Thunderbird charged at Storm, but Beast intercepted him by balancing himself on one oversized hand, and planting both feet in Thunderbird's face. Thunderbird crashed into a collection of barrels nearby.  
  
Cyclops barely raised his arms in time to guard his face from Archangel's knees, which Warren thrust at him from a hovering position. Cyclops lost his balance and fell backward, rolling into a crouched stance with his finger resting readily on his visor's trigger button. A press of the button would release beams of red-hued concussive energy from his eyes. He didn't want to have to use it, however. "We don't need this fight right now," he shouted. "Everyone calm down!"  
  
Nobody listened.  
  
Storm summoned a gust of wind that carried Archangel at full-force into a wall, where Iceman pinned him into place with a thick layer of ice.  
  
Thunderbird got up, and faced off against both Beast and Wolverine, while Colossus busied himself with Meltdown. To her credit, the blonde girl's explosive energy spheres managed to make dents in Colossus' armored body. Unfortunately for her, they only served to anger him. He stood up, brushing at his burning leather uniform and jacket, and strode toward her. Meltdown threw three more energy globes at him, but Colossus shrugged them off. Even through her Ray-Bans, Meltdown's dear-in-headlights eyes were visible, and she bolted for the door. On her way there, she slipped on a melting patch of ice created by Iceman, and shouted a very creative expletive on the way down  
  
. Thunderbird lowered his stance, fists clenched. "C'mon, I'll take both of you!"  
  
Beast sighed. "Another poor guy with more guts than brains. Typical."  
  
Wolverine grinned, springing the claws on his left hand to match those on his right. "This is gonna be fun."  
  
~Can we STOP with the senseless testosterone party, please?~ Marvel Girl broadcasted telepathically to all involved. Her words were somewhat contradicted by her actions, which consisted of restraining Cannonball telekinetically. ~If these guys are right, we have bigger problems to worry about than team spirit!~  
  
Both teams calmed down. "She's right," Cyclops agreed. "We should focus on dealing with the Sentinels."  
  
Iceman, who helped Meltdown off the floor, glanced out a nearby window and saw twelve lights in the night sky, racing toward them. "Uh, Cyclops...? They're kind of already here."  
  
Cyclops swore under his breath and turned to Cannonball's team. "All right. We're going to have to work together on this. If any of you aren't wishing Domino had taken you with her on her little away team, you should be. But you're needed here. Can I count on you?"  
  
They nodded. Everyone except for:  
  
"Archangel? You with us too?"  
  
Warren scowled at Cyclops and looked away. "Yeah, fine, I guess..."  
  
Cyclops smiled faintly, then used his optic beam to cut Warren out of the ice barrier. "Good. Then here's the plan..."  
  
_X_  
  
"THAT'S your plan?" Nightcrawler replied to Domino incredulously as they stood on the rooftop of a building overlooking Bolivar Trask's penthouse suite. "You want the fraulein here," he indicated Siryn, who had him pinned against the wall, her pistol to his neck, "to sing Trask to death?"  
  
"Pretty much," Domino nodded. "Though all it'll take is one note. Bolivar Trask is prone to chronic migraines, which he takes plenty of medication for. With the right frequency, Siryn could quite easily disrupt his inner ear and brain fluid. His death would be blamed on a migraine."  
  
"But that's..." Kurt thought for a moment. "Why are you explaining this to me?"  
  
"He doesn't get it, does he?" Locus scoffed.  
  
"He's even dumber than he looks," Feral snickered, twitching her tail and showing her fangs.  
  
"You threw a wrench into the plan when you teleported here with us instead of Archangel," Domino explained. "Luckily, what we've observed of your power makes you well-suited to fill his role."  
  
Kurt sighed. "I was afraid of that. What role might that be? Wacky next-door neighbor?"  
  
This actually got a laugh out of Domino. "Siryn needs someone to transport her to the balcony outside Trask's apartment. Angel was supposed to carry her, but you can teleport her just as easily. Or was I mistaken when I saw you disappear from the crowd of X-Men and reappear behind Angel in the same instant?"  
  
"What if I refuse?"  
  
"Believe me," Siryn whispered, pressing the gun barrel even harder against his adam's apple. "Ye don't have a choice." She paused. "But even if you did, would you want to refuse? Bolivar created the Sentinels, or have you forgotten? The same robots who destroyed your circus and everyone in it."  
  
Kurt's gaze strengthened as he stared at Siryn. "How did you know..."  
  
Domino shrugged. "How many other blue circus mutants can there be? We'd heard about the incident which orphaned you. We kept track of your movements. We were going to recruit you, but Xavier got to you first, and we were inspired to include the X-Men on our Sentinel strike. But the point remains that sitting across the street, talking on his cel phone, is the man who took your family away from you. He made the machines. He was even stopped briefly when the president decided to go PC on the mutant population. But he had a backup plan. He's bound and determined to hunt mutantkind with those robots. The slaughter of over a hundred innocent mutants is on his head, and you're going to pass up the opportunity to put him out of his misery?"  
  
Kurt thought about this. He said nothing for a full minute. "All right," he conceded finally. "I'll do it. He has much to answer for, starting with the murder of my soulmate and unborn child."  
  
_X_  
  
"Little help here?" Archangel requested into his headset comm. He was putting his manouverability to the test by evading energy beams from three Sentinels. "I'd like to keep by feathers uncharred, thank you very much!" A Sentinel stepped in front of him and grabbed at him with an enormous metal hand.  
  
A wave of cryonic energy encased the Sentinel in a foot-thick coccoon of ice. "Jesus, Archie," Iceman replied over the commlink, "you're starting to sound like Beast over here!"  
  
"I heard that," Beast declared as he cartwheeled over the body of a fallen Sentinel. "But according to our fearless leader, we're supposed to provide these toy soldiers with moving targets on which to waste their fire. So quit complaining and have fun, Angel."  
  
Warren swooped low to allow Cyclops to pick off a Sentinel with an optic blast. "Cyclops is YOUR fearless leader, not mine. And it's 'Archangel', not 'Angel'!"  
  
"So you're really not David Boreanaz?" Colossus quipped as he knocked a Sentinel off-balance, setting it up for Meltdown to blow huge holes in it. "I for one am disillusioned." He smiled at Archangel's voice telling him to shut up, then turned to Wolverine. "You ready?"  
  
Wolverine readied his claws. "Yeah, just go easy on the jacket."  
  
Colossus grabbed Wolverine, and hurled him at high speed toward the Sentinels. "One Fastball Special comin' up!" Wolverine landed on a Sentinel's shoulder and dug his claws into the robot's neck, exposing interior wiring. His claws performed only minimal damage, but it made enough to distract the Sentinel, whose stomach was plowed through by Cannonball while Wolverine jumped off.  
  
"Fastball special?" Archangel asked as he caught Wolverine in midair. "That has to be the stupidest name for an attack I've ever heard!" He found that carrying the clawed mutant was harder was more work than he expected. "Urfff! What have you been eating? You're heavier than you look!"  
  
"Could either be the bacon,"Wolverine answered slyly, "or the adamantium lining my bones. Now put me down, flyboy; I hate heights!"  
  
Archangel obliged, unceremoniously dropping Wolverine from a height of fifty feet. Luckily, Marvel Girl telekinetically slowed his fall until Wolverine hovered twenty feet above the ground. "Nice job, Jeannie," Wolverine growled, "but the idea was to put me on the GROUND!"  
  
"Gripe, gripe, gripe," Marvel Girl replied. "I wanna borrow your services for a second." Before Wolverine could shape another protest, he was launched telekinetically well over the speed limit at a Sentinel, claws forward. His angle of attack slit open the robot's neck, severing internal circuits and wiring quickly. The Sentinel was then exposed to barrage of optic blasts and lightning bolts.  
  
The lightning bolts were delivered by Storm, who chuckled at Jean's treatment of Wolverine. "Told you she only wanted you for your body," she cracked as Wolverine finally landed near her. Wolverine just grumbled. "Looks like that's it, Cyclops," Storm shouted over to the group leader.  
  
"I doubt it, Storm," Cyclops observed gravely. "We started out with twelve Sentinels. We've only defeated seven of them."  
  
"Then, uh, what happened to the other five?" Iceman asked.  
  
"They high-tailed once they saw what we were doing to the seven," Thunderbird bragged, holding and inspecting a Sentinel arm which he'd ripped out of its shoulder socket.  
  
"Don't pat yourself on the back with that thing just yet," Cyclops warned. "The rest probably strategically retreated during the confusion, and are regrouping for another attack."  
  
"Yeah, right, One-Eye; they're machines! They can't think."  
  
"No, but they're programmed with enough A.I. to devise battle strategies based on observation."  
  
Thunderbird strode toward Cyclops. He hated being contradicted as much as Cyclops did, so a conversation between the two was something to be avoided. "Then if you're sure they're gonna attack us again, where the hell are they? Huge robots don't just vanish, ain't it?"  
  
Cyclops was momentarily jarred from his train of thought by Thunderbird's grammar use. He recovered quickly with, "no, which is why it'd be a good idea to open those beady eyes of yours and LOOK!"  
  
"Can it, Summers," Wolverine barked. "You're right; they're still around. I can hear their engines and hydraulics. Sounds like they're coming from--"  
  
A huge tremor shook the parking lot, and the mutants turned to face the factory in time to see it being ripped from its foundation by the remaining five Sentinels, which were relying on teamwork. They activated their foot-mounted jet thrusters, and lifted the colossal structure upward two-hundred feet into the air. It became immediately clear to the mutants that they were about to be squashed like roaches under a falling telephone book.  
  
Even worse, the remains of the seven downed robots surrounded them, and made escape difficult. They certainly tried anyway.  
  
"Everybody scatter!" Cyclops shouted, though it was rather useless to give the others an order which they were already following. "Those who can fly, carry those who can't!"  
  
Cannonball took off with Rictor and Thunderbird; Angel grabbed Storm and Cyclops; Marvel Girl levitated herself and Wolverine; Beast and Colossus hopped and climbed their way out of the robotic junkyard because they were too heavy to carry. Meltdown, on the other hand, thought it was an excellent idea to stay and fight.  
  
"Meltdown, what are you doing?" Cannonball shouted to her. Was she crazy?  
  
"Got it covered, hon," Meltdown replied, charging up two explosive spheres, expanding their sizes until they were larger than basketballs.  
  
Marvel Girl deposited Wolverine clear, then turned to focus on Meltdown, summoning her telekinesis to retreive the X-Forcer who decided to stay and fight.  
  
Cyclops, now on the ground, saw that the Sentinels were ready to drop the building, so he aimed at the boot jets of the one furthest from him in the cluster. Timing this carefully, he pressed the button on his visor to open the ruby quartz lens all the way. He opened his eyes as widely as possible, and let loose a crimson explosion of concussive energy, of which he had to tense his neck muscles to keep control. The energy beams merged into one, as always, and divested the Sentinel of its feet below the ankles.  
  
The sudden loss of one of the supporting thrusters shifted the weight of the building just as the Sentinels prepared to release it. They dropped the building, but at a different angle than they'd planned. The building fell swiftly toward the site where it once stood, missing the mutants by a wide margin.  
  
Meltdown was a little perturbed that her plan had been sidelined, but she decided that as dramatic and spectacular as detonating the falling building was, it was probably a suicide mission. She heard Cyclops ordering the team's energy protectors to hit the Sentinels with everything they've got, now that the robbots were in a tight cluster. She hurled the spheres upward at the robots, and was thankful the spheres weighed almost nothing at all; otherwise they wouldn't have made the distance between her and the robots.  
  
By the time the spheres reached the Sentinels, Storm's gale-force winds held them in place, as her lightning bolts and Jean's telekinetic pulses tore into them. Meltdown's contributions were icing on the cake, and the five robots went up in a massive explosion that elicited a few jokes about Fourth of July from the mutants below.  
  
"Oooooooh....aaaaaaaahhhhh..."  
  
"Tabitha?" Cannonball shouted to Meltdown.  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
"You might want t'get over here with the rest of us. The robot parts are starting to rain down."  
  
"Oh yeah. Good point." Meltdown scampered over to the rest of the mutants as they watched pieces of charred Sentinel clatter on the pavement.  
  
"That was fun," Thunderbird observed, catching his breath. His X-Force teammates nodded in agreement, as did a few of the X-Men.  
  
With the usual exception of Cyclops. "Yeah, but fun's over. Mind telling us where the rest of your team went?"  
  
"I don't have to tell you nothing," Thunderbird retorted, fists clenched. He wondered how many of these X-Men people were going to piss him off today.  
  
Cannonball put a hand on Thunderbird's shoulder. Cyclops found it oddly comforting that he wasn't the only leader who had to put up with hot-headed teammates. "We've dragged the X-Men this far into what we've been doing," Cannonball told Thunderbird, "we might as well tell them everything. They have a teammate there, remember?"  
  
"Whose fault was that?" Thunderbird pointed out. "Not ours."  
  
"Your right, it was my idea," Cyclops agreed. "And it seems to me that Nightcrawler is exactly where he should be."  
  
_X_  
  
~I sincerely hope, Kurt, that you're not about to do what your thoughts are broadcasting.~  
  
Professor Charles Xavier could feel Kurt's irritation at the former's telepathic question. He scratched his cat affectionately behind the ear as he sat in his study, keeping psionic tabs on his newest student's progress. ~That all depends,~ Kurt replied rather shortly, ~on what I'm broadcasting.~   
  
~You're broadcasting an acute need for revenge, and I can't help but notice the rather creative thoughts flitting around in your mind about what precisely you'll do to Mr. Trask once you get your hands on him. I have to say I'm disappointed.~  
  
The professor received as a reply an expletive in German, but he passed it off as the trademark defensiveness of someone unaccustomed to communicating telepathically. Now that Xavier thought about it, he knew of very few people who didn't mind Xavier's mental presence.  
  
He felt Kurt collect his thoughts more presentably, and respond, ~Are you also picking up a complete unwillingless to take a life or go through with Domino's little plan? If so, that's exactly what I'm feeling. I have to admit that giving Trask a detailed piece of my mind is tempting, and Lord knows he deserves it, but right now I need a plan to keep everyone alive. For that, I need Cyclops.~   
  
~Cyclops? I could certainly come up with something if need--~   
  
~Perhaps, but I trust Scott more, and he's better at strategy.~   
  
This genuinely caught Charles by surprise. The tawny-colored feline stirred from his nap, and looked lazily up at Charles, who glided his hand across the cat's forehead. Xavier looked at the cat, named Thoreau, perhaps the only nonhumanoid mutant Xavier was aware of. Thoreau not only possessed the ability to generate massive amounts of bioelectricity when angered, but near-human intelligence and self-awareness as well. He could only communicate with Charles telepathically, but his existence cause Charles to investigate mutations in the animal world more closely.  
  
~Well?~ Kurt's telepathic voice asked, rather impatiently. ~Siryn's in position, and Trask is in sight. She's about ready to sing him a rather fatal lullabye.~   
  
~All right. I'll patch him through.~  
  
_X_  
  
Kurt continued to keep watch from his vantage point on the balcony. He soon felt another telepathic voice float into his head. ~Nightcrawler, it's Cyclops. The professor told me what happened, and that you--~   
  
--Need a brilliant strategy to stop Trask from dying, no matter how much I fantasize otherwise. I can think on my feet, but my specialty is self-defense, not offense. Suggest away.   
  
~Okay, let me think a sec--~   
  
We don't have a second.   
  
~Yeah, I know, just--okay, I have an idea....~  
  
Upon hearing Scott's plan, Kurt found it difficult to keep a straight face. A chuckle escaped his lips, and Siryn turned to him in annoyance. "Sorry," he apologized, and waited until Siryn returned her attention to Trask who was about to down another pill. Kurt let his gaze rest on Siryn's rather shapely posterior.  
  
Acting on Cyclops' suggestion, he reached out and pinched it.  
  
Siryn's planned sonic frequency would have been audibly only to stray animals. Instead, her rather surprised shriek shattered every glass object in earshot, pulverized brick and mortar, ripped through formica paneling, and brought a very prominent roboticist to his knees, bleeding at the ears. By the time the last tiny glass shard tinkled to the floor, Trask's apartment looked like it was visited by a wrecking ball instead of soundwaves.  
  
Siryn wheeled around and backhanded Nightcrawler. "What the hell do ye think ye're doin', ye little blue pervert?! Ye ruined my shot!" She pointed at Trask. "And he's still alive!"  
  
"That was the plan."  
  
"Domino's plan was to--"  
  
"I know exactly what her plan was," Nightcrawler shot back through gritted teeth. "I didn't say I was acting on her plan. As much as I'd like to kill him myself, it's simply not right. We have to be better than him."  
  
"Tell that to all the mutants who died thanks to him," Siryn seethed, "and all of 'em who will die as long as he's alive!" She punctuated her sentence with a high kick aimed at Kurt's chin. Her foot instead passed through a cloud of brimstone, and she whipped around to find Nightcrawler reappearing inside the apartment. Kurt confronted a cluster of FoH guards, who piled into the den to investigate the explosively loud noise barely a minute earlier.  
  
The guards drew their weapons, but Nightcrawler made himself a frustratingly difficult target to hit, bouncing around in their midst, and administering kicks and finger-strikes anywhere an opening presented itself. Siryn was tempted to join the fight, but she found herself simply watching the blue mutant in action, accomplishing acrobatic feats she had only seen in "The Matrix". At one point, Kurt ran up the side of a wall, then flipped sideways to fling out both legs and deck random guards. His tail snaked out to the chandelier, and he used his momentum to swing himself across the room. As impressively as Kurt was handling himself, Siryn realized there were more guards entering the room. She sent a focused sonic scream at them to disable them, then notified Domino's group over commlink to move in. Domino informed her that they were on their way.  
  
By now, Kurt was surrounded, and had managed to take a few punches and kicks in random places. A guard slammed the butt of his rifle between Kurt's shoulder blades, stunning him. On his way down to the floor, Kurt noticed something peculiar: Trask was gone.  
  
He vaguely heard a sonic scream rattle his bones and send the thugs sprawling, but his concentration was on the retreating figured glimpsed outside the doorway. He rose to his ebows, and pulled his knees under him. He vanished in another explosion of brimstone.  
  
_X_  
  
Trask staggered to his car, fumbling for his keys. It had been a long fevered trek to the parking garage, and the severe case of nausea Trask was fighting made the distance between his apartment and his car seem much longer and more painful than usual. His hearing was nearly gone as a result of the sonic assault, and his equilibrium had been bollixed very efficiently. Trask had to stop three times to catch his breath and keep from throwing up, but finally he reached his Mercedes, wanting to put as much distance between himself and those loathsome mutants as possible. He of course carried a few blueprints and floppy disks of Sentinel schematics. No way were the mutants going to get a hold of them.  
  
He pressed the button on his keychain to deactivate the alarm system, and unlocked the door. He suddenly became aware of an odd stench he couldn't place, but had been lingering in the air since he arrived. Smelled like sulphur or...  
  
"What's the American phrase? Oh, I call 'shotgun'."  
  
Trask froze as the voice made itself known in the echoing garage. The voice had a noticeable German accent. His mind raced. His eyes darted around. "Magneto?"  
  
The voice burst into surprised laughter, revelling in the absurdity of the question. "Heavens, no. He's less handsome. Believe me, you wish I were Magneto." The voice was suddenly closer, seemingly right behind Trask.  
  
He spun around to face a dark grinning face devoid of pupils. "Guten tagh," the figure hissed.  
  
Fireworks erupted across Trask's vision, and only when he felt cold hard cement slam into his shoulder did he realize he'd just been punched. He didn't even see the mutant's arm move. He looked up and around, trying to locate the mutant, who had disappeared. He raised himself painfully into a sitting position, then scanned the room 360 degrees. No sign of the mutant. He stood up slowly, afraid to guess how much his landing had damaged his shoulder. He could still feel the mutant's presence. "I know you're still here, demon! Show yourself! Or are you too afraid to meet me face-to-face, instead of hit-and-run?"  
  
The mutant came out of nowhere and slammed a foot into his ribs, sending him into the door of his car. Trask finally got a good look at the mutant, and was both repulsed and amazed by the physical extent of the creature's genetic mutation: blue skin, yellow eyes, oddly-shaped hands, and a tail. He was dressed like one of the X-Men. "'Afraid'?" the mutant practically screamed. "This coming from a man who sends robots to slaughter an entire race? You talk to me about cowardice, and try to exterminate innocent people simply because they're born different, and because a few of them might be terrorists. There is no excuse for that kind of evil."  
  
"Self defense..." Trask breathed. "Your kind exists to wipe us out."  
  
Again, Trask found himself on the receiving end of what had to be a kick, so fast there was no preamble, simply a strike. "And your kind exists to wipe out any thing that's inconvenient. Nature, mutants, other, less-fortunate humans...it's all the same. Perhaps X-Force is right: perhaps there's only one solution for you."  
  
Trask tried to meet his gaze, but found it quite difficult for a variety of reasons. "So kill me and get it over with."  
  
The mutant thought on it for a moment. "I guess I could; there are any number of ways I could do it. Crushed windpipe, hard kick to solar plexus, broken neck, nose driven into brain...maybe all three and more; what do you think? Your choice."  
  
Trask stuttered.  
  
"Nah," the mutant shrugged dismissively. "Not devious enough. I do have an idea what to do with you, but first I want to ask if you remember a certain circus your robots invaded."  
  
Trask looked away.  
  
"Do you? Answer me."  
  
"Y..yes..."  
  
"So you remember the scores of normal human bystanders who were crushed in the incident, all in an attempt to kill two lowly mutants. Was it worth it?"  
  
"It was ... it was a disaster," Trask whispered. "That shouldn't have happened. I mourned their deaths."  
  
"That's funny; so did I. They were my friends, my family, my audience. They bore me no ill will, and come to think of it, neither did the robots. They just acted on programming. I don't even blame the robots anymore. But you? How can you possibly live with yourself?"  
  
Trask kept silent.  
  
"That's what I thought. Professor?" The mutant seemed to be suddenly talking to someone else.  
  
~I am here, Kurt.~  
  
"Remember that one trick Jean is fond of, with the music?"  
  
~Oh yes. Do you have anything specific in mind for him?~  
  
Barely thirty seconds later, X-Force arrived to find Trask writhing on the ground, holding his ears. Nightcrawler stood over him, quite amused as Trask ranted and raved, "make it stop! Please!"  
  
Nightcrawler smiled at Domino. "Shhh. He's listening to a rather rousing song in his head. As loud as possible. With any luck, he'll be hearing it for the rest of his life."  
  
Domino was curious. "And...what's he listening to, exactly?"  
  
"Yodeling. It sucks to be him."  
  
_X_  
  
Kurt climbed his way to the top of the platform, and looked down down up at the big top tent above him, and down at at the main ring and audience below him.  
  
The audience was cheering for him.  
  
He smiled as he surveyed the lack of net. Just as he liked it. As far as he was concerned, safety nets went out with training wheels and baby teeth.  
  
He stood at the precipice, holding his hand out on both sides theatrically. He really didn't need to do this for balance, as his tail automatically provided all the balance he ever needed, but he was a showman.  
  
The trapeze hung at an unusually remote distance from where he stood, awaiting his arrival. No ordinary human could make the jump. Which was exactly why he treasured it.  
  
He knew that this was all an illusion. He knew that he was actually standing at the center of the mansion's Danger Room, experiencing the simulation via a virtual reality helmet. He knew that the dizzying height and faint breeze were programmed into the simulation, and that all laws of physics and gravity he was aware of were artificial in this environment. Beast had made it as close as humanly possible to what Kurt would experience on a trapeze platform.  
  
But he didn't care. It had been months since the last time he had performed under a big top. Months since he had taunted the pull of gravity. Months since he'd held Amanda in his arms.  
  
He was going to enjoy this for all he was worth.  
  
He felt the heat of the spotlight on him. His eyes were tightly closed, both to prepare himself mentally, and to keep out the bright light on his sensitive nocturnal eyes.  
  
He bent his knees slightly...  
  
...and leapt.  
  
END 


End file.
